Kevin Taylor Meet & Greet
3/3/13
by Jim Gerrish
The Meet and Greet event took place at Kevin's home at 413,
North Arlington Avenue, East Orange, NJ. I arrived at 5:15 and by
the time the meeting started at 6:00 PM, the good sized living
room was filled and more continued to arrive as the evening went
on.
L-R: Muzammid Mohamed-Stevens (2nd Ward
Candidate), Kevin Taylor (Mayoral Candidate), Zaimah Abdullah
(4th Ward Candidate),
Vernon Pullins (State Senator Candidate), Bobby McGrady (1st Ward
Candidate)
I was expecting the meeting to be all about Kevin and his
plans for the city when he becomes Mayor of East Orange, but he
is beginning to put together a team of like-minded counsel people
who are also running for election in June, and I also met a state
senatorial candidate whom I knew as an elementary student when I
taught at Washington Elementary School in East Orange.
More about that later.
There were some preliminary speeches of introduction of
Kevin, but I was in attendance to report on Kevin so I will
confine my remarks to his own words. I was hoping to find someone
that I could trust with my vote. I had been registered as a
Republican a week ago, but, realizing that I would not be able to
vote for any East Orange mayoral candidate in the June 4th
election of 2013, I had gone down to city hall and re-registered
as a Democrat. I am happy to report that I believe Kevin is
someone that I can vote for either as a Republican or a Democrat.
I found out that he had made himself an entrepreneur while he
was still in high school, and had created a business that
immediately began employing his high school friends as workers
around the city of East Orange. Later, in 1984, he formed a
construction company called Ketco, and won a city contract to
have his company construct part of our current Brick Church
Mall. Today, he is currently President of Blackstone
Acquisition LLC, a property acquisition firm. Kevin currently
manages over 150 properties throughout the United States within
major urban and suburban real estate markets. He is also Chief
Executive Officer of PI Resources LLC, a marketing and
advertising firm.
I had noted the absence of the usual campaign donation pails
and in fact, no one asked me for a campaign donation the entire
evening. As Kevin explained, he was not in the mayoral campaign
for money. He noted that when he became mayor, he would have to
give up his full-time jobs mentioned above. He also pointed out
that because of his businesses, he could not be
"bought" by the democratic "machine" of Essex
County. You'll note that on his campaign literature (see below), Kevin never once asks you for
money.
Kevin's plans for generating revenue and reducing property
taxes are all based on his experience as an entrepreneur and
successful businessman. The most important point he made during
his speech was that East Orange was one of the wealthiest
communities in the county, yet the current administration, after
four terms in office, was not using that wealth to benefit the
city, but was only squandering it, and depending on property
taxes, parking tickets, and state and federal aid to run the
city. Kevin noted the many run-down portions of the city, the
vacant buildings with broken windows, the litter-filled vacant
lots, the vacant and unused school buildings (Columbian,
Washington, Elmwood and VLD jumped to my mind). After pointing
out all of this squalor, that I well knew from traveling around
the city almost every day, I wondered how Kevin could call East
Orange a wealthy city.
Kevin pointed out that East Orange owns land in Livingston
and Short Hills, that had
been purchased back in 1905 under the urging of the first two
city mayors, Mayors Bruen and Cardwell. Kevin showed us how
the "water wealth" in our 18 artesian wells could be
used to sell water service to more municipalities than are
currently being served by it, generating revenue to bring down
property taxes. There is also land which can be developed without
damage to the water table, adding further revenue without
resorting to taxes. Because previous mayors have been politicians
with little to no business experience in developing land and
property, they had all overlooked or under-utilized this obvious
water wealth and land wealth as revenue for the city. As a result
of listening to Kevin's ideas, I was encouraged to go up to the East
Orange Water Works and see for myself our wealth of water
resources.
Kevin also talked about the past and current use of the
city's police department to issue parking
tickets as a source of city income, resulting in what is seen by
many to be an "oppressive" police presence around the
city. This is not a fault of the police, but of the city's
parking policies which severely restricts parking spaces,
resulting in more parking tickets, etc. Kevin plans a review of
the city's vacant lots to increase parking availability, and by
also increasing on-street parking permits and using alternate
side of the street parking regulations to keep narrow
neighborhood streets open for nighttime street cleaning. Kevin
sees these as ways to resolve the city's parking problems.
Kevin also spoke about a plan to develop our sanitation
department by leasing garbage trucks with which our city could
then provide our own sanitation needs and extend those services
to adjoining cities which would both create new jobs and add to
our revenues without costing our taxpayers anything.
I think you can see that I am now convinced that Kevin is
someone I can vote for both as a former Republican, a current
Democrat, and forever a member of the East Orange Tea Party. Although as
Tea Party member I do not endorse any political party or
candidate, as a private citizen of East Orange, I urge you to do
your own homework, use your computer to check Kevin's background
and references for yourselves, and draw your own conclusions
about which candidate deserves your most cherished civic
possession, your vote.
After Kevin spoke, he introduced State Senatorial candidate
Vernon Pullins. As mentioned above, Vernon had been a student at
Washington Elementary School in East Orange, and remembered me as
"the teacher next door" because of my group of
"Washington Wizards" that eventually became The Wiz
Kids, Inc. He is just in the beginning stages of his campaign
and was collecting signatures for the petition to place his name
on the ballot for the June 4th primary election. He didn't speak
much about his plans or make any campaign promises, but seemed in
agreement with Kevin's plans and goals for East Orange. I don't
know if he has a chance to win against the "democratic
machine" in New Jersey, but it was nice to know that sixth
grade student I knew from so long ago was today running for state
senator. I will keep an eye on him from now on and report on his
progress in the campaign. Vernon also has his own Facebook
page .
The final speakers for the evening were all candidates for
city council from wards other than my own, so I would not be able
to vote for them in the third ward anyway. But they all support
Kevin and his plans and goals, so if you live in those wards of
East Orange, check them out, do your homework, and decide which
of them is deserving of your vote. They were (in the order in
which they spoke) Robert (Bobby) McGrady (1st Ward Candidate),
Zaimah Abdullah (4th Ward Candidate), and finally Muzammil
Mohamed-Stevens (2nd Ward Candidate). To learn more about them,
Bobby McGrady has a Facebook
Page, and Zaimah has both a Facebook Page and a Web Page planned
(not yet functional). Muzammil Mohamed-Stevens also has a Facebook Page.
Kevin has his own Facebook page where you can ask him questions
and get rapid responses.
Kevin also has a very active Campaign Web Site.
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